Node:Subdirectories, Next:, Previous:Configuration Links, Up:Setup


Configuring Other Packages in Subdirectories

In most situations, calling AC_OUTPUT is sufficient to produce Makefiles in subdirectories. However, configure scripts that control more than one independent package can use AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS to run configure scripts for other packages in subdirectories.

AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS (dir ...) Macro
Make AC_OUTPUT run configure in each subdirectory dir in the given whitespace-separated list. Each dir should be a literal, i.e., please do not use: 
if test "$package_foo_enabled" = yes; then
  $my_subdirs="$my_subdirs foo"
fi
AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS($my_subdirs)

because this prevents ./configure --help=recursive from displaying the options of the package foo. Rather, you should write: 

if test "$package_foo_enabled" = yes; then
  AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS(foo)
fi

If a given dir is not found, an error is reported: if the subdirectory is optional, write: 

if test -d $srcdir/foo; then
  AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS(foo)
fi

If a given dir contains configure.gnu, it is run instead of configure. This is for packages that might use a non-autoconf script Configure, which can't be called through a wrapper configure since it would be the same file on case-insensitive filesystems. Likewise, if a dir contains configure.ac but no configure, the Cygnus configure script found by AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR is used.

The subdirectory configure scripts are given the same command line options that were given to this configure script, with minor changes if needed, which include:

  • adjusting a relative path for the cache file;
  • adjusting a relative path for the source directory;
  • propagating the current value of $prefix, including if it was defaulted, and if default values of the top level and of sub directory configure differ.

This macro also sets the output variable subdirs to the list of directories dir .... Makefile rules can use this variable to determine which subdirectories to recurse into. This macro may be called multiple times.